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Ché's Travelling Companion Alberto Granado Passed Away

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Alberto Granado, whose 1952 journey across South America with Ernesto Ché Guevara, which was recounted a half-century later in the film "The Motorcycle Diaries," began as a youthful adventure but turned into a political awakening that helped make Guevara a leftist radical and an icon of revolution, died March 5 in Cuba,

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"He was a man who fought and died for what he thought was fair . . . and as time goes by and countries are governed by increasingly corrupt people . . . Ché's persona gets bigger and greater, and he becomes a man to imitate. He is not a god who needs to be praised or anything like that, just a man whose example we can follow in always giving our best in everything we do.” Alberto Granado

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Argentinean biochemistry doctor, writer, and scientist Alberto Granado, a close friend of Ernesto Ché Guevara who accompanied him during a trip around Latin America, died suddenly on Saturday in Havana at the age of 88.

A note read on Cuban television on Saturday afternoon informed that, in accordance with his wishes, Granado’s body is to be cremated and his ashes spread in Cuba, Argentina and Venezuela.

Between December 29, 1951, and July 1952, Granado embarked on a tour of South America with Ché Guevara. They witnessed firsthand the poverty of disenfranchised native peoples and their frequent lack of access to otherwise cheap and basic medical care. These experiences galvanized both men in realizing their future vocations.

Granado was the author of the book ‘Travelling with Ché Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary’, which served as reference for the 2004 film ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ in which he was played by Rodrigo de la Serna, while Ché Guevara was played by Gael García Bernal.